“Few people in this country have any notion how blessed by nature is the Canadian soil. The beauty, majesty, and material importance of the Gulf of the St. Lawrence is indeed the theme of every traveller, while the stupendous chain of lakes to which it is the outlet is well known to afford a system of inland navigation such as is to be found in no other part of the habitable globe…
Such a scene as this may well fire the most sluggish imagination, nor can there be conceived a greater privilege than being permitted to watch the development of an industry and civilization fraught with such universal advantage to the human race. In fact, ladies and gentlemen, it may be doubted whether the inhabitants of the Dominion themselves are as yet fully awake to the magnificent destiny in store for them…or have altogether realized the promise of their young and virile nationality. Like a virgin goddess in a primæval world, Canada still walks in unconscious beauty among her golden woods and by the margin of her trackless streams, catching but broken glances of her radiant majesty, as mirrored on the surface, and scarcely recks as yet of the glories awaiting her in the Olympus of nations."
